Using Commonplace Books to Enrich Medieval and Renaissance Courses

This book is a collection of essays offering a wide range of approaches to teaching with commonplace books. In the medieval period and beyond, commonplace books promoted a blend of excerpting, memorization, creative writing, and journaling, making them the analogue equivalent to modern-day digital journaling, bookmarking, and note-taking tools. Covering a variety of methods for introducing students to the medieval and Renaissance reading practice known as commonplacing, this volume provides instructors with concrete guidelines for using commonplace books as a teaching and learning tool. The enclosed essays provide a point of reference for best practices as well as concrete models for teaching and learning with commonplace books, helping instructors develop more student-centred, inclusive curricula.

Sarah Parker is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Gender + Sexuality at Jacksonville University. Her research interests include Renaissance literature, history of medicine, and history of the book. Her work has recently appeared in History of Science and History of European Ideas.

Andie Silva is Associate Professor of English at York College, CUNY and of Digital Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research focuses on digital pedagogy, digital humanities, and history of the book. She is the author of The Brand of Print: Marketing Paratexts in the Early English Book Trade (2019) and co-editor, with Scott Schofield, of Digital Pedagogy in Early Modern Studies: Method and Praxis (2023).